Conventional overhead doors include several horizontal panels joined in series to allow the door to move along a track between a lower vertical closed position and a raised horizontal open position. Adjacent panels are pivotally joined by roller hinges that allow the door to move along both the straight and curved sections of the track as shown in FIGS. 1A-1F. Each roller hinge holds a roller wheel that rollingly engages the track. The door is slightly wider than the door frame so that sides of the door extend beyond or overlap the vertical side portions of the door frame. The bottom end of the door engages the horizontal floor of the building and preferably includes weather stripping to better seal the door against the floor of the building. The door is also slightly taller than the door frame so that the top end of the door extends beyond or overlaps the upper horizontal portion of the door frame. A piece of weather stripping can be secured to the top of the door to help seal it against the door frame.
Some conventional overhead doors provide an adjustable track to adjustable space the vertical section of the track to the vertical sides of the door frame. This adjustability helps align the track so that the sides of the door will better seal against the vertical sides of the door frame. One way to achieve this track adjustability is to provide a slot in the brackets that secure the track to the door frame as shown in FIG. 1F. When the vertical section of the track is aligned to properly space the door to the door frame, bolts passing through these slots are tightened down to fix the track to the door frame. A problem with conventional overhead doors is that they do allow for this track adjustability toward the top of the vertical section of the track. In addition, many overhead doors do not provide track brackets with slots or other mechanisms to adjustably align and space the track with the door.
Another problem with conventional overhead doors is that the door panels do not seal against the vertical side sections of the door frame or weather stripping when the door is closed as shown in FIG. 1B. A continuous gap or series of intermittent gaps exists between the door panels and the vertical sides of the fixed door frame. These gaps can be an unintended result of poor track and door installation, settling of the building or warping of the door frame, or the gaps can be an intended design feature. Unfortunately, when these doors are used in colder or hotter regions, the gaps allow outside air to blow or flow into the interior of the building, which dramatically increases heating costs on cold days, and cooling costs on hot days. The gaps can also cause unsafe conditions on cold days when ice forms inside near the door even when the door remains closed. Although weather stripping can help alleviate some gap and air leak problems, these problems frequently persist because the weather stripping can be torn or damaged, is insufficient to close the gap, or looses its resilience over time and on colder days when a good seal is most needed.
A further problem with conventional overhead doors in providing a proper seal between the door and door frame is the varying height of the roller hinges. To prevent binding and allow the door to release or move away from the door frame when the door is out of its closed position, the track is angled slightly toward the inside of the building and away from the generally vertical door frame as the track progresses up the sides of the door frame. To accommodate this inward angling of the track, the height of the roller hinge flanges increase the closer the hinge is to the top of the vertical section of the track, and decrease in height the closer the hinge is to the bottom of the track or floor of the building. The varying flange heights of both the dual-hub and low profile roller hinges complicates the physical structure of conventional mechanisms used to help ensure that the door properly engages the door frame or its weather stripping when closed.
A further problem with conventional overhead door assemblies is that the two lower door panels are joined by a low profile roller hinge that is structurally different than the other roller hinges that join the upper door panels. The upper roller hinges have a pivoting hub to allow pivoting movement of the adjacent door panels. The upper roller hinge also has a separate roller hub for securing the roller wheels that engage the track of the door assembly. The lower low-profile roller hinges have a single combined pivoting roller hub that allows pivoting movement of the two lower door panels and secures the roller wheel that engages the track of the door assembly. Accordingly, the mechanism for sealing the door panels should be adaptable to work in both single and dual hub roller hinges.
The present invention is intended to solve these and other problems.